Scared at airport security? Anxious about ageing? Fearful your fallout shelter doesn’t quite cut it? The artist Michael Smith has been reliving the horrors of modern life since the 70s – as a dance-cum-comedy act
The man closes his office door for what seems like the last time. Around him are a gang of fresh-faced twentysomething co-workers, like a particularly vexatious Gap advert. He stands patiently as they present him with a giant gold watch; seconds later, they are gone. His shoulders sag several inches. He’s yesterday’s guy. The invisible man.
It’s a scene that must have been staged in real-life workplaces the world over. What makes this one different is that this is a piece of conceptual art-cum-dance and I’m watching on a password-protected videofeed courtesy of the Tate gallery. It’s a sneak preview of a piece by the cult American artist Michael Smith that will appear on 10 December. This is performance art, but not as you might have seen it: an amalgam of filmed contemporary dance (the stuff I’m watching) and improv comedy, which will be streamed live online from a lair inside Tate Modern. There’s a perky piano soundtrack. Oh, and the bit after the office scene is a surreal medieval dream sequence, complete with armour, and it’s also a kind of dance. Even the curator, when I call, sounds unsure what Tate is about to unleash. “We have a rough idea,” she hedges.
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Source: Guardian Dance News